


A Pound of Flesh

by pentaghastly



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Denial of Feelings, F/M, First Time, Inner Dialogue, Love/Hate, Mage Hawke - Freeform, Sarcastic Hawke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-09
Updated: 2013-07-09
Packaged: 2017-12-18 07:03:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/876980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentaghastly/pseuds/pentaghastly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>“I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.</em><br/>Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.<br/>Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day<br/>I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps."</p><p> </p><p>Fenris and Hawke, and the real reason he left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Pound of Flesh

> “I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.  
>  Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.  
>  Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day  
>  I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps. 
> 
> I hunger for your sleek laugh,  
>  your hands the color of a savage harvest,  
>  hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,  
>  I want to eat your skin like a whole almond. 
> 
> I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,  
>  the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,  
>  I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes, 
> 
> and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,  
>  hunting for you, for your hot heart,  
>  Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.”  
>  ― Pablo Neruda

..

It is not a slow fall.

That much seems fitting, anyways - nothing in Fenris' life, or as far back into this "life" of his that he can remember, has been gentle. History has not been kind to him, as the lyrium burning through his veins proves well enough. He is not familiar with fleeting touches, with gentle words or loving caresses. He is familiar with pain, and torture, and blood. This is what he is comfortable with. This is what he _knows_ , this is what he deserves.

Their relationship is no different. Hawke is, in herself, her own personal brand of torture. Not her magic, either - that he has chosen to ignore now, for both of their sakes. She has proven...responsible, or at least less susceptible to the temptations that her _kind_ so often give into. She is stronger than the abomination, or the blood mage. And that knowledge wasn't much of a surprise to him, in any case. He knew it as they fought side-by-side in Danarius' mansion that first night, and it had frustrated him more than anything.

But he chose to ignore it, for his sake as much as hers.

No, it is in the way she _is_ that she tortures him. Marian Hawke, for all her status and adoration that she's achieved in her short time in Kirkwall, is all in one the strangest creatures he has ever met. She has a terrible habit of not being able to keep her mouth shut, for one, the snarky comments and sarcastic remarks that fall off her sharpened tongue often landing them into more trouble than they had been previously. And it's the fact that, while he would never admit it, she makes him _laugh_ , often times unable to hide the quirk of his mouth or the slight chuckle under his breath as she rambles on about boneless women flopping through the streets and "Massive Head Trauma Bay."

And it's the way she smiles at him when he does, as if they're _friends_. Fenris does not allow himself such illusions about their relationship - he, an escaped Tevinter slave, her, an apostate noble with a soft spot for blood-mages - they are not friends. Not even acquaintances. He wouldn't call them enemies, not go that far, because if he could he would have left her side long ago. But he holds no warmth for her, nor her for him, he suspects, and still she insists on treating him like...

He cannot place his finger on the word. When rage sets his blood aflame her gloved fingers will brush his own, soft enough to be accidental, deliberate enough to suggest otherwise. When they fight, when he screams in her face and nearly slams her against the wall, her voice won't raise an octave. Hawke, hot-tempered, cold-blooded Hawke, with the childish jokes and the penchant for vengance, treating him...gently.

He despises it. Despises _her_ , the way she can make his blood rush and make him smile in the same sentence, the way she constantly turns up at his house for one reason or another, drinking his wine and rambling on about the abomination's obsession with his manifesto or how Isabela had led her on another dead-end search for her relic, ignoring the fact that she disagreed with his methods and he disagreed with who she was as a whole, and pretending like they were _friends_. He despises her for making him forget who he is, for making him cast aside his hatred of mages to work with not one, but three, and for making him enjoy her presence, just sometimes, when she spins these ridiculous tales for him and finishes off another bottle of the Aggregio Pavali.

Then the slavers come for him.

He's frozen, unsure, feet urging him to just go to where they stand, to give up this pathetic play at a new life that he's been trying to maintain for so long. But it's her voice that stops him, her voice announcing that he is no one's slave, and it's her magic that's earning him his freedom, and he realizes that he's in love with her.

It is not a slow fall. It is his world crumbling around him all at once.

..

He sees it in her eyes, fleeting, as he has her pressed against the cold wall of her room, lyrium flowing through his veins like fire - he has surprised her. _Good._ If anything of this encounter can grant Fenris satisfaction, it is that Hawke is just as taken aback, just as lost as he is. He cannot grant her an advantage over him. For his own sanity, his own self-control, he will not.

He does not plan to, when her lips are pressed to his and he forgets his plans all together. 

_No,_ something inside him screams, _This is not the way you want it. She is not your master. You are not her slave._ But the moment her body is pressed to his he is lost, curling his fingers in that hair which he has longed to touch for so long, longer than he might have known, inhaling her sent and reveling in her taste, the taste which is entirely and unabashedly Hawke. She moans against his lips, and he feels a rush of pride in knowing that in this she is not entirely in control of herself either - she is as lost as he, as confused as he, as much a slave to him as he is to her. It spurns his arousal on further, and before he knows it he is carrying her to her bed, wolf's teeth nipping at whatever exposed skin they can find.

She's toxic, his Hawke, but he cannot draw away, not now that he's here, so close. Her fingers are deft and skilled, as he had suspected they would be - for all that Hawke is, she is not an innocent. He's not her first, but she's his, the first that he can remember, at least the first in which he is as much of a willing participant as she.

For a moment that thought causes him to pause, but a moment's hesitation leads to more determination - _I am nobody's slave_ \- and he's torn those infuriating robes off of her, the robes that at once remind him of the creature she is while bringing attention to the things he cannot ignore, like the curve of her hips, they way they swish when she walks. He grunts in half-apology and she laughs, a joyous sound, and Fenris finds himself filled with a sudden rush of pride that _he_ was the one who caused such a noise.

"For once in your life, will you shut up?"

His words are teasing against her skin, and he nips at her flesh as she speaks them, causing her to both laugh and gasp at the same time; he thinks he likes that sound even better. So he does it again, motivated more by selfish desires than anything else, and rolls his hips into hers just as an extra, just to show her she's not the only one who's wanting this.

"You're overdressed," she tells him breathlessly but still with her dry humor and a quirk of her eyebrow, and they're such cliche words that Fenris would almost laugh himself were her hands not working so deftly at their task, peeling his armor off of him as if she is a woman dying and the only cure is his body against her own. It doesn't take long - he always told her there were benefits to a warrior wearing so little armor - and his hands work at her small clothes in the mean time, and soon they're both gloriously naked and for once he finds himself in this position with no feeling of shame.

Hawke traces the lyrium marks with her fingers and he gasps, not so much out of pain, but out of shock - it's never felt like _that_ before either, not that he can remember. "Bad?' she asks, sounding almost self-conscious, and Fenris shakes his head quickly to be rid of any doubt she might have. No, it's not bad. It's better than anything he could imagine, and he would tell her that if he could find his voice. 

"You're beautiful, Fenris," she tells him, hand coming up to rest on the side of his face, and the gentle look is one he has seen before, only ever on her face, only ever to him. When her fingers flutter over his skin they're not hard, or punishing, or demanding, but they're loving and languid, and she's taking her time, as if exploring him is an entirely fascinating act. And he watches her as she does, lips still curled into a semi-smile but not laughing, not anymore, and again he would comment but his voice is lost anew when she brings her hands up to the tips of his ears, a mischievous look on her face. He hisses in pleasure, and she's certainly laughing now.

_Wench._

He had expected it to be volatile. Explosive. He had been expecting it to be rough and biting and cruel, had almost been counting on it, because it would have made it so much easier to act like it never happened. To walk away, and never turn back. But when he enters her he finds himself unable to think about anything other than _her_ , unable to concentrate on anything but her breathless gasps and the trembling of her fingers, unable to deviate from the languid pace she sets for them.

Fenris knows how he should feel - disgusted. Even in this he is a slave, a slave to her pleasure, and even in this he can do no more than what he is told. But in this he doesn't _want_ to, and the wolf inside him that was once growling with a hunger for her blood is sleeping, and he finds himself not for the first time entirely wrapped up in the enigma of Hawke, of the feel of her, of the look on her face when he brings her to her peak; he finds himself unable to look away even if he wanted to, and at first it is the most terrifying moment he's ever known.

..

After that, it's infuriating.

He tells her he's leaving because of the memories, and Fenris supposes that that's partially true. He did remember things, and the cruelty of having them stripped away was like being branded by the lyrium all over again. But that's not all there is, and he knows it, and he supposes she knows it too, even if she doesn't voice her thoughts.

He's leaving because he cannot stand it a moment longer, the gentleness of her touch burned onto his skin as much as the marks are. This isn't the way that him and Hawke are meant to be - he's an animal, vicious and uncaged, and she's his prey. Not his lover, not his friend. She _can't_ be, no matter how badly he longs it so. This was never the way it was meant to happen, and he curses his own stupidity and weakness that consumed him the moment he laid in the arms of a beautiful woman. He fancied himself in love with her before, but now he knows it isn't true; he's _obsessed_ by her, enthralled and captivated and entranced and it's dangerous, so dangerous, and the fragile slave that he is, he only realized it when it was too late.

So he leaves her in the bed far too large with her face as if he had reached inside of her and torn out his heart, and perhaps he thinks that might just be more merciful. He leaves her cold and alone and hating him, as she should. As she _always_ should.

If she notices the red armband tied around his wrist, the piece of fabric torn from the robes he had ripped, she doesn't mention it. It's another one of her small mercies she grants him, another one he doesn't deserve, and he hates her for it.

If only that were true.

..

**Author's Note:**

> oops I angsted again  
> kudos/comments are greatly appreciated <3


End file.
